Optimism

Perhaps the future is not as bleak as it appears.  I started thinking about what happened in this election year and remembering some things that may have been glimpses of reality that went unnoticed. Back during the Republican primaries there was a field of candidates that was so far to the extreme right in their ideas that, truthfully, they were just not taken seriously by most Americans.  Literally, most people laughed at them, Read more

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Jefferson on Change

Thomas Jefferson to Samuel Kercheval, July 12, 1816 Some men look at constitutions with sanctimonious reverence, and deem them like the arc of the covenant, too sacred to be touched. They ascribe to the men of the preceding age a wisdom more than human, and suppose what they did to be beyond amendment. I knew that age well; I belonged to it, and labored with it. It deserved well of its country. It was very like the present, but without the experience of the present; and forty years of experience in government is worth a century of book-reading; Read more

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Thomas Jefferson to Benjamin Hawkins

“… I consider the business of hunting as already become insufficient to furnish clothing and subsistence to the Indians. The promotion of agriculture, therefore, and household manufacture, are essential in their preservation, and I am disposed to aid and encourage it liberally. Read more

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The Middle Class

One of the favorite “buzzwords” the politicians keep using is “middle class.” Do you know who Romney or Obama are talking about when they use it?  I don’t. It would be helpful if they would tell us who they mean when they say “the middle class.”  I suspect they are not talking about the same people.
My curiosity got the better of me and I did a Google search to see what I could find.  I got 510,000,000 results.  I looked at a few.

Que Sera, Sera

"It is what it is" is obviously true, but "que sera, sera" is not.  I reject the idea that we have nothing to say about the future.  We can not change the past, (although there have been many attempts to re-write history) but "what will be" is what we make it.

What I learned watching the RNC.

Mit Romney is a nice guy and his wife loves him.
Paul Ryan once washed dishes and waited tables at a restaurant.
As President and Vice President they will “lead from the front.” I didn’t learn where they will lead us or what path we’ll follow.
They will “protect” medicare. They didn’t say who or what from or how they’ll do it.
They will “restore America’s future.” I have no idea what they mean by that and they didn’t say.

Contradiction

“UNAWARE OF THE CONTRADICTION…. There's an old joke that goes something like this: my neighbor went to public schools before joining the military. He went to college on the G.I. Bill, bought his first home through the FHA, and received his health care through the V.A. and Medicare. He now receives Social Security. He's a conservative because he wants to get the government off his back. I mention the joke because a surprising number of right-wing activists don't seem to appreciate the humor.

CLEANING UP

There are some 2300 names on the family tree right now at Ancestry.com and over 4000 hints of possible matches to information from the 1940 census and other documentation.